dailydatewithgod

The Great Creator who designed every part of your being out of love and for love is within you and around you at all times.  The gift of life that we have been given was done with such generosity of spirit that we cannot begin to fathom the abundance of the gift.  God does not ask for anything in return but God does invite us to include him in our lives. More than anything God wants us to keep him in the loop.  Communication with God in whatever form it takes–formal or informal prayer, free-flowing stream of consciousness, acknowledgement of gratitude for our gift of life, expression of the love that we are, etc.  The form matters little, what is important is the act of communication.  I have written many times of my frank manner of communication with God-I dont’ mince words and God is very accepting of me.  But I do it because it works for me to believe that the Great Spirit wants to hear from me in the most authentic way.  But I also find that expressing gratitude for all things big and small bring me closer to God.  It can be all of it or one form, it only matters that we engage.  My prayer for us today is that we be willing to engage with our Creator by opening up the lines of communication in whatever form feels most authentic.  Make it a great one!  Peace~Colleen

One of my favorite songs is “Fragile” by Sting.  The main line of the song says, “We forget how fragile we are.”  In a world that asks us to show how strong we are and what we overcome, the value of our fragile nature as human beings gets lost sometimes.  We see fragility as weakness and being less than.  But what if it is our fragile nature that allows us to connect with one another because we have our defenses down.  We do not see separateness because in the moments offragileness there are no walls to keep us from connecting with each other.  I know for me, I can sit in myfragileness because I know that with me is a God that has all power and all strength.  I have the freedom to be weak because it is then that I can be used by All That Is to do things that I could never do no matter how strong I am.  I didn’t understand this until I reached the moment or moments when I stood before God humbled in the inadequacy of my human strength.  The irony is that I thought by admitting defeat to my way of being and doing things was the end of me.  Instead it was the beginning of a deeper relationship with God and with myself and with all those around me.  My prayer for us today is that we be open to noticing the power that comes from our fragile natures and use it as an opportunity to connect with others. Make it a great one!  Peace ~Colleen

The well-known cliché is that the only thing constant is change.  It is obviously a cliché for a reason.  When we begin to embrace the abundance of change in our lives as a move into fullness and closeness to who we are at our core, it holds great promise.  When we focus on the idea of change as struggle and pain and discomfort then we will fear it.  I feel as though God is constantly inviting me to see things in a new way.  I am offered an opportunity to embrace the beauty of change in my life and the life of all living things around me.  We don’t seem to mind when the oxygen we take in refreshes our cells or get change back when we purchase something.  So why do we resist some change and not others?  I find that for me, when I am wedded to the idea of security in a certain way of being or pattern that the resistance to change becomes stronger.  I fear the unknown and wonder who I would be or have to become in order to participate in a new situation.  However, if I am living in the truth of who I am at my core–love, beauty, acceptance, forgiveness, graciousness, power, and fully aligned with the Great Creator then whatever change occurs is simply a new space and time in which to be those things.  When I am not in that space, the changes are opportunities to step closer to that state of oneness with God.  When I am in that space of oneness, I am the agent of change.  When I experience resistance to change, I find it helpful to turn to God and ask, is the change I am perceiving is an invitation from him or simply fear masquerading and playing with my head?  If it is an invitation then I ask for the courage to accept it and trust that it will call me closer to the Great Spirit and myself.  My prayer for us today is that we be willing to be curious about the resistance to change and ask questions.  Make it a great one!  Peace~Colleen

The Great Creator has designed everything that exists with such intricacy. The beauty of Being a being who encompasses All is that at no point does any part of what the Creator has fashioned become less important that the moment it first came to be.  We are cherished beyond belief.  We are looked upon and bestowed with the same amount and love and care today by our Creator that we were at our very first breath.  This is because the being that loves us to our core thought of us long before we even took physical form.  The depths of which we are loved and always will be loved is beyond our comprehension but All That Is knows nothing other than the preservation of the love from which we were originally generated.  So, how in the midst of a busy weekend participating in a world that seems bent on destruction where things don’t seem to go our way and we keep making mistakes or feel stuck do we preserve that same understanding of ourselves and the world?  How is that possible?  Like everything else, that which I cannot do, I turn to the one who does and ask to be shown how.  I recognize with enough humility that I don’t know how, despite my best intentions, fully invite love into my heart.  It is often blocked by my mind which is full of ideas of what it is supposed to be and feel like.  Sometimes those ideas do correlate with how love shows up in my life, but often it manifests in such unexpected ways. This is good because it reminds me that it is beyond the fullness of my understanding and allows me to be surprised and delighted by it.  I think that is one of the best things about love and grace is that when our hearts experience it in its fullness we are caught off-guard and don’t have time to create the potential barriers to it.  Maybe it really is about being present in the moments of our lives and having the openness and vulnerability to trust that LOVE is preserved in and around us at all times, we just need to breathe it in.  My prayer for us today is that we be willing to let go of our ideas of how love is going to show up in our lives and focus on the moments and maybe be surprised and delighted by its unexpected touch. Make it a great one!  Peace~Colleen

There is so much that connects us with one another.  When we come from a heart space we are able to see it.  However, we also have a mind that makes distinctions and categorizes.  In order to do that it must look at the differences.  If we are constantly operating from only our mind, then we will be focused on the differences.  It is beneficial for us to be able to make distinctions and tell things apart but when it comes to connecting with other people we want to be able to see our kinship, our relatedness, ourkindredness.  We can have both and do, sometimes we just need help transitioning from our head to our heart.  It may seem safer to stay in our head.  If we are so different then when I get hurt I can blame it on the fact that it is because you are separate from me.  But maybe the reason it hurts is because we are connected and it is the pain of the separation that I am feeling. Maybe the pain is from the movement away from the heart connection.  I have heard it said that there are not multiple problems in this world, there is only one–the thought that we are separate from God.  That notion of separation shows up most commonly in how we focus on our differences between us and our fellow-man.  Throughout history the drive for this distinction has caused great death and destruction.  Conversely our focus from the heart on our oneness has created great movements of peace and justice.  We are capable of both, the only question is who would God have us be today?  My prayer for us today is that when we find ourselves focusing on the difference between us and the person next to or in front of or behind or just on the street corner with a sign, that we simply pause,breathe and ask God to help us see it them through the eyes of love.  Make it a great one!  Peace~Colleen

In God we are granted the fullness of Peace.  God is LOVE therefore resting in God brings peace to our heart.  It is a peace that comes from being in the state of our fullness which is love.  It is hard to imagine sometimes what this could really be like, especially when our lives seemed to suffer from a lack of peace.  There are our external and internal wars going on all around and inside our own hearts.  I have learned that the quest for peace must come from within me first.  I cannot look to the world and wait for it to be at peace, I must start with the lack of peace in my own life, in my own heart and mind.  I also learned over the years that it is a process.  Not all will be reversed at once, but in the date times with God I bring to Him that which is lacking peace in my life and ask that I be shown what to learn from it.  God show me what is happening here?  I give this to you, take care of it and when it is ready for me to do something with it, give it back to me.  God I have no idea how there will ever be peace in this place in my heart, show me the power of your everlasting peace.  There is no shortness of ways to ask for God to grant us peace.  It is just about being aware of the lack and asking to be shown the truth.  My prayer for us today is that we be willing to take one area of our lives where we lack peace and give it to Our Creator.  Make it a great one!  Peace~Colleen

We live in world, in an experience that is going full speed.  It is easy in such a space to spin about.  It is easy to buy into the mentality that because the earth is spinning we should to.  We are in this world but not of this world.  And unlike other creatures in nature we have the capability to use our thinking to create a different experience.  This can help us to be in tune with something greater than the physical experience and it also can cause us to be disconnected from our physical experience.  We need both of those capabilities.  It is when we slow down enough and check in with ourselves, with our hearts, with our spirits and ground ourselves in who we truly are that we can discern which way to go.  The other element for me is that I need to ask God to be aligned with God thinking because even when I slow down those are not necessarily my first thoughts.  When I pause and recognize where my ego thoughts are taking me, I can turn to My Creator who thought of me before my ego came into being and ask: What would you have me be and do here? Thy will, not mine be done. My prayer for us today is that we be willing to yield to the greater will of the One who sees all with LOVE.  Make it a great one!  Peace~Colleen

The simplicity of life is just that.  Life is simple.  We are love, we were created by love and we are here to experience and live the fullest expression of that love.  Everything else we know and understand is only peripheral.  Our truest calling to be our highest and best selves requires us to call upon the Great Creator who designed every fiber of our being.  This Great Spirit invites us into relationship with each new day and each new moment.  We are not of this world, but we are in this world.  It is as though our time here in our bodies and on this earth is an assignment for our souls.  But in the process of doing the assignment we begin to identify it as who we are.  We have all been there when we had a job, a project, or a task that we became so engrossed in that we forgot about other things.  A relationship when it is new has the same effect, we are so preoccupied by thoughts of the other person and when we get to see them, etc., that we forget about some of our other relationships.  It is easy to forget when in this world that we are not of this world.  It is only when we experience pain that we wake up to something not “being right.”  But even that is simply a perspective.  Everything that wakes us up is an invitation to discover who we truly are and how we can live this assignment most effectively.  My prayer for us today is that we utilize the wake-up calls we are given to ask God to increase our effectiveness today, if needed.  Make it a great one!  Peace~Colleen

We are all given such beautiful gifts and tools for living each day, it is sometimes hard to imagine that we can ever take for granted that life is meant to be lived.  The key is remembering that we are not of this world but we are in this world.  Meaning that God calls us to participate fully each day and rely on him for the courage and the strength to keep going with enthusiasm when the weariness of this world begins to pull us down.  Having God close at hand to rely upon is essential because to live in the keen awareness that we are more than our circumstances is not easy.  We might begrudge ourselves for not remembering this, but God does not.  God never sees us as anything short of miraculous and a being full of love and light.  I personally need God right there to whisper in my ear and remind me of this truth.  So when I show up for my date, God knows why I am there.  Lord, show me again who I really am.  Great Creator, remind me that the fear and uncertainty I am feeling about how to show up today for myself and for others is only a story, not who you see me as.  All That Is, grant me the courage and the keenness to face this day and see all I encounter with the eyes of love that you have placed within in me.  My prayer for us today is that we remember that God gives us what we need today to face the day with enthusiasm and we need not be afraid to ask for help.  Make it a great one!  Peace~Colleen

Faith is a glorious gift from which to embrace our living in this world.  Faith is something that if accepted as a gift in a way of living allows us to be more present to receive the gifts of our lives.  There are different kinds of faith and different levels of faith.  Some days it is easy to have faith, other days it is just a five letter word.  Faith relies on hope and belief that God is who God says that God is.  Faith calls us to step outside our mind that is looking for a definite outcome and trust that God is working even when it looks like nothing is happening.  I was reminded this weekend at a seminar that I attended that just because we see nothing happening, doesn’t mean that God isn’t creating.  God is always creating.  The Universe is always growing and expanding–just go to the planetarium exhibit and they will tell you.  Our role is to trust that whatever is being created and coming next will serve our highest and everyone else’s higher good.  We have faith that God is who God claims to be with every breath and every creation.  My prayer for us today is that we sit with excitement in the space of nothing happening and enjoy this time to just be with God.  Make it a great one!  Peace~Colleen